Category: Competition Entry

by Rebecca Lyon

THIRD PLACE in September 2025 Competition.

Boris watched from the guttering as I moved into that ridiculous house that ridiculously sweltering June. Two up, two down mid-terrace with two under-fives, a baby, two dogs, a hundred boxes of toys and other plastic nonsense and a massive recurring migraine. 

‘Hello darlings,’ our new neighbour said, handing over, inexplicably, a brand-new paddling pool and a huge garden parasol. 

Before I had a chance to thank her or answer the urgent requests for iPad/sweets/ice lollies from my boys, she turned to leave. ‘Don’t worry about Boris,’ she said, looking up at this huge black cat observing us from above, ‘he’s twenty-five.’

‘Is he ok with dogs?’ 

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘He hates dogs. And people. Except Otis Redding. Just ignore him.’ She swept off trailing the smell of vanilla.

Boris watched from the gatepost every time I made a pen for the baby out of boxes and puffed up the paddling pool. Any arguments and Boris would sigh, regally descend, and sit his expansive bottom in the middle of the water to a stunned silence from the boys. Boris was in charge, and they would play nicely.

Boris watched from the windowsill as I cried into the fridge every time there was no food the kids liked, and I couldn’t face getting everyone into the oven-like car and going round the supermarket with hungry screaming kids and becoming one myself.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Bread, cucumber, cream cheese. I’ll check for mould.’ 

I gave Boris a spoonful. He nodded. 

‘They won’t like it.’ I despaired. 

‘Cookie cutters’ said Boris. ‘Stars.’

Boris watched as I took the plates of spongy white stars out. They watched him watching and understood. They ate every single one.

That September the sun shone gentler. My boys started pre-school, and we all made some friends. Boris never spoke to me again, but every Sunday I’d play Sitting on the Dock of the Bay out of the window and he’d nod along, approvingly.

Judge’s comments: I DON’T NORMALLY ENJOY STORES ABOUT ANIMALS, BUT THIS ONE USED THE BORIS THE CAT CHARACTER WELL. I LIKED THE SET UP OF THE PROBLEM, THE SOLVING AND THEN FURTHER RESOLUTION. ECONOMIC DETAILS THAT WERE EFFECTIVE. WELL DONE!

by Dominique Hackston

SECOND PLACE in September 2025 Competition.

Sandy, Heidi and Tina spent the sweltering summer before senior school wearing out the brown, parched lawn of No. 24. Never Heidi’s because her neighbours complained, or Tina’s because her mum was too strict. It was always Sandy’s. She had a cassette player, and her mum used Tupperware to ensure a continuous supply of ice-lollies.

They tanned all summer long while singing and twirling. The first dance the trio learned was Save All Your Kisses For Me, copied from the Eurovision Song Contest. The next was their favourite, Jungle Rock, until The Wurzels hit No. 1 with Combine Harvester.

Music blasted from the windowsill, where Sandy operated her tape player. She claimed her father set this rule, but really, it was an excuse to stand in the shade and pick the songs she liked.

The girls took turns choreographing and performing solos; other songs were group efforts, and all dances ended with sweaty fringes, big grins and a bow. It was a noisy, hot, but harmonious summer until the last day, when Abba’s Dancing Queen got to No.1.

That day, like every day, the sun shone. It was a smite cooler. Tina arrived late, after completing chores and extra homework for her mother.

‘I need Wurzels,’ she pouted. ‘And an ice-lolly.’

‘After you’ve watched us boogie to our new favourite song, Dancing Queen.’ Sandy grinned. ‘Its’s about me.’

‘And me,’ Heidi added.

The two dancers high-fived.

Tina glowered, charged, and screamed. ‘We agreed Wurzels is our favourite.’ And she shoved Sandy – hard.

Tina was ordered home without an ice-lolly. Mum wrapped an ice-laden towel around Sandy’s wrist. Then, licking a lemon icicle, Heidi waved goodbye.

As the heatwave ended, the freeze between Tina and Sandy began. It didn’t thaw, not even after the cast came off.

Judge’s comments: AN ATMOSPHERIC STORY WITH GREAT WORLD BUILDING AND AN ASSURED SENSE OF TIME PASSING. CHARACTERS WERE DRAWN IN A SUBTLE WAY

by Eleanor Marsden

FIRST PLACE in September 2025 Competition.

There was no sound quite like it, that summer: a drowsy, beating buzz that hummed in the ears and serenaded the luxuriating hillside.  Shards of mediterranean shape-shifted beyond the olive trees, cutting the heat with a glistening clarity.

Everything was alive with song. Ochre-striped bees spiralled between petalled heads, marshalled by hoverflies, ignoring beetles shuffling amongst the stamens. Butterflies flirted for position, too, myriad wings susurrating through the air.  I stretched out my fingers until the pads brushed the uppermost reaches of the bank next to me, caressing grass-tips and petal-edges with the whisper of the breeze. I felt the sun heat my face; brushed away the tiptoeing of flies on my skin and ducked from the whining plea of a mosquito.

The unmistakeable helicoptering of a masonry bee faded in, a bauble on wings, careening left and right until the black-blue berry of a body hurtled into view. I watched it scout out the patch of wild flowers alongside me, before defying gravity back towards its hideaway. Startled by this beat-boxing interloper, a cloud of insects rose up as one, leaving behind only the quivering beetles. 

I had just recognised the whirring of a hummingbird hawk moth, a velvet blur crossing the mid-morning sky, when something landed by my feet with a rattle. The grounded cicada proceeded to chirrup indignantly, its pride wounded by the constant shushing of its  fellows. 

No, there was no sound quite like it, that summer…  At least, that’s what I imagine it was like. It’s what I hear, in my head. What we all hear, deafened by the quiet. We wiped out the insects a generation ago, and now, in my short life, in the unfeasible silence, I fill my head with the sounds of the life we lost.

Judge’s comments: LUSH AND OPULENT WRITING, WITH A REAL SUCKER PUNCH ENDING. WELL DONE!